At first, a Belgian man thought the noise coming from his outdoor planter was pesky pigeons. Turns out, it was Europe’s largest owl — four of them.

One of the world’s largest owls, the Eurasian eagle owl, set up camp in Jos Baart’s third-storey apartment planter. Since the mother owl’s three gigantic chicks hatched, they’ve taken to watching TV through the window with their new landlord.

In video footage shared by Dutch nature show Vroege Vogels (or Early Birds in English), the huge, fluffy chicks can be seen standing at attention in a row, eyeing the television screen over Baart’s shoulder.

Their less-friendly mom typically watches over her hatchlings from behind a shrub, seemingly a little warier of Baart and her babies’ TV-watching habits.

“She has a good view of the nest from there,” he explains in the video. “She can stay there for six to eight hours at a stretch.”

They seem to have grown accustomed to each other now, but it wasn’t long ago Baart thought they were a nuisance.

“I thought, damn, those pigeons again,” he says in the video.

He was proven wrong one day when he arrived home and the large mother owl took flight right in front of him.

“You can see how relaxed they are,” Baart says in the footage. “They’re not scared at all. For me, it’s like watching a movie 24-7.”

Eagle owls typically nest on cliffs and ledges, the U.S. National Aviary says, but are sometimes known to take over abandoned golden eagle nests.Guinness World Records recognizes the species (also known as the Bubo bubo) as the largest owl in the world, with a wingspan of more than 1.5 metres. They have no natural predators and a long lifespan of 20 years in the wild, but can live up to 60 years in captivity.

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We could hardly believe it when we got a message from Jos Baart telling us that Europe's biggest owl, the Eurasian eagle-owl, had made a nest in a planter in front of his window. Not only that, she had also hatched three giant chicks!#vroegevogels #springwatch #owl pic.twitter.com/gz1odkFLYC

— Vroege Vogels (@VroegeVogels) May 18, 2020

A saw-whet owl is recovering at a wildlife refuge in New York state after it was discovered clinging to the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

The bird was found by workers helping to transport the spruce 170 miles from Oneonta, New York, to New York City.

"It's just a story out of a movie," said Ravensbeard Wildlife Center director Ellen Kalish, who is caring for the owl.

After the feathered stowaway - now named Rockefeller - was dropped off with Ms Kalish and taken to the wildlife centre, her team began giving him fluids and "all the mice he will eat". Rockefeller had not had anything to eat or drink during his three-day road trip. "It's amazing he didn't get crushed," Ms Kalish said.

Rockefeller was taken to the vet on Wednesday night for a check-up and some X-rays, but Ms Kalish said he appears to be in great condition considering his adventurous week.

"So far, he's pensive and cautious. Very alert, bright-eyed," she said. "And the cuteness factor is just off the charts."

Despite Rockefeller's diminutive size, he is a full-grown adult. Saw-whet owls are the smallest owls in the US north-east, Ms Kalish said, typically growing to no more than 8.3in (17-21cm) tall.

"They're a very interesting species," Ms Kalish said. They are "very" nocturnal, meaning they're typically not seen unless someone is looking for them. Some migrate south for the winter, and some don't migrate at all.

Once Rockefeller has a clean bill of health, Ms Kalish and the Ravensbeard team will release him back into the wild. "Our goal is to release any bird that can be released," she said.

There are about two million saw-whet owls across the US, she said, so Rockefeller will be OK if he doesn't make it all the way back to Oneonta. "They find a new mate each year and go on with their lives," she said.

With all the bad news of 2020, this tiny owl's rescue "was a story that needed to be shared", Ms Kalish said.

And plucky little Rockefeller the owl has lit up this year's Christmas tree with some positive publicity. Source

A Florida screech owl was in for a surprise when one of her hatchlings looked nothing like her, but she didn’t hold it against him. Unlike the Ugly Duckling fairy tale, the mother owl appeared to care for the baby duck as her own.

The had been incubating her eggs in a nest box in the backyard of a nature photographer for about a month. One morning, photographer Laurie Wolf noticed the figure of a little bird sitting next to the owl and ran outside excitedly to photograph it.

But when she got a closer look she realized it was a duck!

“The two of them were just sitting there side by side,” Wolf told National Geographic. “It’s not believable. It’s not believable to me to this day.”

Afraid the owl, a bird of prey, would eat the little wood duck, Wolf and her husband attempted to capture him to take him to a wildlife sanctuary. But the duckling jumped from the nest box and “made a beeline for the pond” and they never saw him again. Director of Bird Studies Canada Christian Artuso told National Geographic that what Wolf thought she saw happening was likely true.

It wasn’t the first time wood ducks have been scientifically recorded living with screech owls. Artuso witnessed a similar relationship in 2005 while he was studying eastern screech owls for his Ph.D. Only in that case, the owl incubated and hatched three wood duck chicks, says Artuso, who published his findings in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology.


“We know this occurs, but we really don’t know the frequency,” he says.

The reason, he explains, is that wood ducks practice something called brood parasitism, which means laying an egg or two in another bird’s nest to increase the chances that at least one of their offspring will survive.

“You could think of it as not keeping all your eggs in one basket,” said Artuso. “If you spread your eggs out, then your chances of passing on your genes are increased, especially if you lose your own eggs to a predator.”

Even though duck eggs are about twice the size of owls’ eggs, the owls don’t seem to suspect any foul play.

“The parents might be thinking, Oh my god! This egg is huge! We’re going to have the best baby in the world!” Artuso said.
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A Georgia family got a special holiday surprise last week after finding an owl hiding inside their Christmas tree.

The discovery came last Thursday evening when Katie McBride Newman and her two children, India and Jack, were finishing dinner. India, 10, had started to clear the table and was in another room when Newman heard her exclaim, "Oh my gosh!"

"She comes very dramatically into the dining room and goes, 'Mama, that ornament scared me,'" Newman told CNN. "Then she bursts into tears."

Newman said she's a big fan of owls, so the tree actually had about a dozen owl ornaments gracing its branches. At first, Newman said she thought India had just been spooked by one of those. So Newman checked it out, ready to calm her daughter's fears. But when she peered into the tree for the ornament, she saw the owl turn its head and look straight at her.

"And I'm like, 'Oh, that's a real owl,'" Newman said. Meanwhile, India had disappeared into the other room, in tears again. Owl may have been in their tree for over a week

The family had purchased the tree from a store about two days after Thanksgiving, so at first they thought the owl must have flown in and taken refuge inside their tree, Newman's husband, Billy, told CNN. The family left their windows and doors open that night, hoping the bird would leave on its own -- but it didn't.


The next day, they called the Chattahoochee Nature Center, a non-profit environmental center about an hour away from their home in Newnan. An employee there told them to leave the owl some raw chicken, concerned it may not have eaten in a few days.

The employee stopped by Saturday morning. She caught the bird and identified it as an Eastern screech owl, common in the Georgia area, a spokesperson for the nature center, Jon Copsey, told CNN. She also checked for injuries and gave it some food and nutritional supplements.


The owl was pretty thin, igniting the theory that the bird must have been inside the tree since they bought it, Billy Newman said.


Returning the owl to the wild

The employee left the family some instructions: Leave the bird in a crate in a darkened room and release it after dark. At dusk on Saturday, the family left the open crate outside. By 9:30 p.m., the owl had disappeared. Copsey said the family did everything right in the situation -- closing it off from the rest of the house, trying to help it escape on its own and calling a wildlife rehabilitation professional.

Katie Newman, though, says she swears she can still hear the owl at night, hooting away.
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A burrowing owl was photographed making an audacious attempt to put an American badger on its dinner plate.

It’s an animal that’s around double its size – and is easily capable of killing it. The brazen mission was carried out in Badlands National Park, South Dakota, as the badger approached its nesting site.

Claws out-stretched and eyes fixed on its prey, the owl swoops in. But the badger proved to be far too big and powerful for it and the owl flew off empty-clawed.

For those familiar with badgers, the outcome of the battle will come as no surprise

They are renowned for their sturdy frame, thick fur - and fearlessness. They’ve even been known to stand their ground against adult bears.

When threatened they don’t hesitate to bite and claw their attacker and sometimes release an unpleasant odour to further deter predators.


The diminutive burrowing owl, meanwhile, is far more suited to killing small rodents and insects. This one clearly had delusions of grandeur.

A father of two filmed the moment an unbelievably cute baby rescue owl played 'peek-a-boo' from inside her flowerpot home.

Michael Stephenson was at Bridlington Birds of Prey and Animal Park, in East Yorkshire, when he spotted the nine-week-old rescue bird, Athena, playing 'now you see me, now you don't'.

The 51-year-old captured the bird's antics on camera last Saturday and said it was the 'cutest thing' he'd ever seen.

Mr Stephenson, from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, said: 'I'm a grown man but that's the cutest thing I've ever seen. I thought I was going to explode in a pink puff of smoke. It was just so unbelievably cute.

'People of a certain age will remember Bill and Ben the flower pot men - it reminded me of that.

'She's what's called a "little owl". She doesn't come out often for the public but the team brought her out.


'She was in a little plant pot. It's sort of a comfort bowl while she's growing. They brought her out to feed her and get her some fresh air. She bobbed her head up and down and took a peek at us as if to say "what are all you people doing here?"


'If you looked at the full picture you can see she's barely the size of the keeper's hand. That's just a regular medium-sized plant pot too - she's tiny.'